Will Berlusconi make a comeback? EU quakes at thought

Feb. 24, 2013
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Supporters wave flags in front of a giant monitor broadcasting a message by Silvio Berlusconi on Friday during a center-right coalition rally in Naples, Italy. Berlusconi skipped his last campaign rally before Italian elections because of an eye problem. / Salvatore Laporta, AP

by Eric J. Lyman, Special for USA TODAY

by Eric J. Lyman, Special for USA TODAY

ROME - A scandal-ridden former leader who resigned in disgrace, a professorial technocrat who pulled Italy from the brink, plus a comedian and an anti-Mafia judge are among the choices for prime minister when Italians started two days of voting Sunday.

And all of Europe is holding its breath.

"I've been voting for more than 20 years, but this is the first election where friends from all over Europe are sending me messages to know how I will vote and what I think will happen," said Michele Cossu, 44, a coffee bar owner in Rome.

It was barely 15 months ago that Italy's economy was in a shambles. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was immersed in scandal over bribery and soliciting prostitutes at sex parties. A financial crisis was spiking Italy's borrowing rates to the levels that sent Greece, Portugal and Ireland to the EU for budget bailouts.

With an economy twice the size of the others combined, Italy appeared too big to bail out. A default on its loans threatened to wreck the eurozone, the group of 17 nations that use the euro as currency.

EU ministers demanded change in 2011 in return for their help, and Berlusconi was forced to step down, ushering in a new government run by "technocrat" Mario Monti, who slashed spending and is credited with stabilizing the situation.

But that was then. The vote will determine whether Italians approve of the harsh measures taken by Monti, and media polls indicate many may vote in a way that could open the door for Berlusconi's return.

Adele Calabrese, a 76-year-old retired music teacher, said the election is critical to the country's future.

"My two daughters study in Paris, and my son works in Brussels, and they're all flying back to vote because they say this election is too important to miss," she said.

The field includes popular comedian-turned-activist Beppe Grillo and Antonio Ingroia, a hard-hitting anti-Mafia judge. But Berlusconi, the consummate Italian politician, has a history of persuading the masses to give him another try.

Berlusconi, 76, is running a campaign that calls for undoing many of Monti's austerity measures. He says he will push to reimburse taxpayers for a controversial property tax imposed last year to stabilize the budget.

But the son of a gas station attendant and a former government minister from the rolling hills between Bologna and Milan appears to be a favorite, media polls indicate.

Pier Luigi Bersani, known for wandering speeches, is likely to get a plurality of the vote and if so will probably be able to cobble together a ruling majority in Parliament.

"The chances are very slim that Bersani will earn a majority on his own, and so he's going to have to strike a deal with someone who he already said 'no' to when he thought he could win on his own," said Marco Travaglio, an author and frequent political commentator.

Berlusconi's surge in the polls over the past six weeks is the main reason Bersani finds himself in this position.

A billionaire media tycoon, Berlusconi has been a fixture of Italian politics despite sex scandals, convictions for tax evasion and trials for abuse of power. He spent more than all his rivals on television advertising in January promising to cut taxes and restore government services Monti slashed. In December, he was down 17 percentage points to Bersani, a gap he had shrunk to a mere 5 points in early February when a ban on polling went into effect.

But providence may have intervened against him. The unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 11 pushed coverage of Berlusconi off the airwaves and onto the back pages of most Italian newspapers.

"Bersani, Monti and the other candidates weren't on television nearly as much as Berlusconi, so when people turned on the TV it was Berlusconi they saw," said Maria Rossi, co-director of the polling firm Opinioni. "Now that's no longer true and it has to be giving some voters time to think twice about whether they'll support him."

Franco Pavoncello, a political scientist and president of John Cabot University in Rome, said that Italians who complain Monti's austerity policies are too tough are forgetting how bad things were in 2011. They may remember as the election approaches.

"Complaining about the austerity policies given how bad the situation was is like a family that calls the fire department when their house is burning down: The fire department comes, puts out the flames, and then the family complains that they got everything wet," Pavoncello said.